


The Monsters We Run From

by Jehanne_d_Arc



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Friendship, Healing, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-15
Updated: 2016-11-15
Packaged: 2018-08-31 06:38:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 641
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8568079
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jehanne_d_Arc/pseuds/Jehanne_d_Arc
Summary: A look at Julian's thoughts at the end of 3x05.





	

I saw a... something... in his eyes as he was talking. Something I hadn't seen before. Maturity, maybe? But it was more than that... He was better than I had known him to be. He was better than I knew, and I couldn't trust him... but I could almost trust... in him.

"Maybe you're right." And maybe he was.

I rose with a sigh, and turned to leave. Enough for one night. It's time to go home, Julian. It's done. 

Allen stood, with his eyes down-cast, and his expression as resigned as my own. For a moment, I could pretend I had never really seen him before - maybe I hadn't. Just a guy. Just a slightly annoying, maybe untrustworthy, possibly well-meaning guy. Feeling just as trapped and as helpless as I was.

But maybe not so helpless, in the end. I could change one thing.

"You can stop." Allen paused, his hands wrapped around a picture frame. When his gaze rose to meet mine, his eyes were confused. "You can stay." He looked like he had never seen me either. Say the truth, Julian. "I was..." I thought about this evening, "...really wrong about the flash..." I looked at the face I thought I knew so well. I looked him up and down, feeling the person I had thought him to be drain away. It was difficult to let go, somehow. Maybe it felt like losing. Everything felt like losing these past few years. "I might be wrong about you too. So." I nodded, and got a better hold of my coat. "Goodnight, mate."

I let the room fade behind me, making my way for the door and, beyond it, home. I felt like the whole life I had thought I lived had died a second death. First in the drastic changes science had experienced over the past few years, and now again. Something seemingly small happens, and you accept that life will not be quite the same. The world changes overnight.

"Julian." A voice I had not expected to hear call after me, ever. I stopped. there was an almost audible shrug, and then, "Do you wanna get a drink?"

I turned around. "Yeah," I said immediately. "Yeah I'd like that." How long had it been since I had done that? Since I had just gotten a drink? Since I had answered a question without hesitation? Since I'd forgiven someone - including myself?

Allen grabbed his coat, leaving the boxes forgotten on his desk. "Let's do it." Halfway between a second chance, and a call to lay down arms - it's own battle in a way. Steeling yourself not to fight.

Together we made our way to the door, and out into the night.

Crazy things happen. A scary world. People die. Trusts are betrayed. People get hurt. But the world can change overnight. People can change too, and that can be a good thing. Perhaps we are not so powerless as we might want to think. Because it's hard - but for as long as we can change, then we can change the world. Not overnight, perhaps - but with a beer with a friend; a shared office; a listening ear... I nearly took a life tonight. I thought that I might lose my own. And in the end, I did lose much of what I've known. That's how it happens. Each day is knew, and you have to accept that yesterday is gone - it's rules and plans and hopes - and each new day is like a whole new world, a whole new timeline. Each choice we make affects our future, and can't be undone. We might not be able to change the world to be what we had wanted... But we can change our world - our tiny, powerless, insignificant world. And once we know that... maybe we are not helpless after all.


End file.
